tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448581132479481740.post3777157738783363745..comments2019-09-14T14:42:17.411-04:00Comments on Existential Ennui: Book Review: Killing Time by Donald E. Westlake (T. V. Boardman, 1962)Nick Jones (Louis XIV, the Sun King)http://www.blogger.com/profile/17716508525331235684noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448581132479481740.post-69736341856876725972012-08-07T06:28:23.167-04:002012-08-07T06:28:23.167-04:00It&#39;s not as good as 361, a mite better than Th...It&#39;s not as good as 361, a mite better than The Mercenaries, and one thing that struck me when reading it was that it seems like the first book in a series--The Tim Smith novels--and yet it isn&#39;t. <br /><br />In my opinion, the ending isn&#39;t tacked on--for Westlake, it&#39;s a very logical progression to an inevitable denouement, that you don&#39;t see coming, precisely because the protagonist is a hardboiled detective in the Hammett mold, and however bad things get, those guys always win out in the end.<br /><br />But Tim Smith lost sight of who he was, and that&#39;s the one unforgivable sin for a Westlake character. Yeah, he&#39;s clearly based on The Continental Op, but he&#39;s made a few too many compromises, told himself a few too many lies, and basically has been straddling a fence between honest and dishonest for far too long. He should have picked a side and stuck to it. <br /><br />And when Cathy said &quot;let&#39;s get out of here&quot;, he should have gone. He couldn&#39;t let go of the life he&#39;d made for himself. I think the point of that relationship (less idealized but more believable than the fantasy girlfriend from The Mercenaries) is that he does love her, but he can&#39;t even commit to that. He&#39;s a smart cookie, but in the end, he outsmarts himself. Takes a bad situation and makes it worse for everyone, himself included. <br /><br />And honestly, isn&#39;t that the more likely outcome of a Red Harvest scenario? I know Westlake damn near worshiped Hammett, but he still figured he had something to add to that legacy--the understanding that if you play both ends against the middle, you&#39;ll end up crushed between them. <br /><br />Ray Kelly doesn&#39;t make that mistake, and Parker, Westlake&#39;s Ideal, always knows exactly who he is, and what side he&#39;s on--he never kids himself. Smith is a likable character, but he gets what he deserves. <br /><br />What&#39;s most interesting here is that Westlake is starting to create his own Upstate NY version of Yoknapatawpha County, or Miskatonic University if you prefer--some of these fictional place names will be recurring in his work for decades to come. <br /><br />As to the Wyczas, I like to think Dan was the black sheep of that family of cops--and the only honest one among them.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00271250698430923736noreply@blogger.com